I received an email recently from a defender of free expression and longtime reader of FREE WHITEWATER, The Mysterious Miss X. Very much my pleasure to hear from her again, and so very pleased that she’s doing so well.
Here’s what Miss X had to say, with my reply thereafter:
Hi John Adams,
It’s been a while since I stopped by to say hello. I thought you might find this interesting:
http://consumerist.com/5007260/man-arrested-for-complaining-too-much
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/15982195/detail.html
You may be wise to not publish it and thus avoid giving Whitewater officials any ideas!
I see a growing number of these types of reports. Thought I’d send you this one.
Adams: My pleasure, entirely. The Consumerist reports that a
Pennsylvania man was arrested for making too many complaints on behalf of his neighborhood to get the local government to enforce noise and air quality laws against a concrete manufacturer across the street from him…Marshall Pappert was appointed the neighborhood pointman to try to prod the local government to action, sending scores of letters and leaving phone messages. It was three messages left with borough Manager Lori Collins that brought the backlash. In them he called for her to resign and accused her of breaking promises to collect and test dust samples from neighborhood homes. She found this harassing and called the cops. Pappert is appealing his conviction. It’s a sad day when someone gets arrested just for asking the government to do its job.
Only a few people in a town ever aspire to local politics, city management, or code enforcement. They’re not particularly glamorous tasks (unlike, say, being an astronaut, snowboarder, or professional fisherman).
No one is ever forced into one of those municipal roles; one decides on a career like that voluntarily. After being in the job a while, a mistaken municipal official decides, “I don’t deserve this criticism” and then decides “I have to put a stop to it.”
It’s the “I have to put a stop to it” that takes the official from representative of a local American community to thin-skinned, self-important bureaucrat suitable only for a banana republic. (But not the Banana Republic, a retailer of “men’s and women’s mid-scale casual and tailored apparel” that would expect better customer service than thin-skinned, self important bureuarcats can provide.)
In these cases, from the perspective of a reasonable person, it’s hard to figure why someone would decide to defy the rights and liberties of America for petty self-interest or convenience, but it happens all too often (as Miss X observes).